US and Australian Hostages Beg Trump to Help Free Them from Taliban

Two professors kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan five months ago have appeared in a video for the first time, pleading with president-elect Donald Trump to do whatever it takes to negotiate their release, adding that if nothing happens “we will be killed.”

Here’s what we know:

• The video, which appeared on YouTube on Wednesday, was purportedly shot on January 1. It shows American Kevin King, 60, and Australian Timothy Weeks, 48,  and is the first proof the pair are alive since they were kidnapped while leaving the campus of the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul on August 7, where they both taught. The pair appear disheveled and both break down crying during the 13 minute video.

• The men deliver a message from their kidnappers to the US and Australian governments in the footage. Its release is timed to coincide with the reopening of the university in Kabul, following an attack by Taliban fighters a few weeks after the abduction in August, which killed 13 people.
  
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